Trees I've loved, trees I've lost

What explains our affection for trees? As Gretchen Miller writes, a network-wide RN project has elicited hundreds of responses, detailing our complex relationships with trees—trees of childhood, trees of heartbreak, and trees of love.

The human relationship between trees and people goes right back to the forests of the first humans, and our ambivalent relationship with trees can be traced through to the here and now, via fairy tales, mythology, and science.

But this relationship begins afresh for each one of us in childhood. For some hard-to-define reason, trees provide a kind of nourishment of the soul, whatever our belief system. We find a freedom and a deep comfort when we climb a tree; when we sit with and commune with something we imagine or sense as sentient (even if in a vastly different way to ourselves).

Trees were one of the things about which there was quite significant conflict and quite significant variation in views—so we had people who loved and adored trees in their back garden and people who felt quite uneasy about them.

Professor Lesley Head, University of Wollongong

When RN called for your contributions around the theme ‘Trees I’ve loved, trees I’ve lost’, over 550 stories came in from all directions. A bundle of heartfelt hand-written pieces by school students from the Mid North Coast of NSW caused us to smile, as did other writings which celebrated and mourned favourite trees, and told funny stories of cats and trees, kids and trees, secret trees and deeply felt communion with trees.

‘The tree held my secrets for me, my whispers would seep into its sap, travel upwards in Spring and then drop with its falling bronzed leaves in Autumn,’ wrote one contributor, Mark Sargeant. ‘I knew the paths that the tree took in its journey towards the sky, in its many arms; it knew the weight of my words, the weight of my body.’

There were also many less uplifting tales of tree cutters—councils and developers that had removed a loved tree.

This week we’ll be broadcasting some of your words on trees—40 contributions will turn up all over RN. You can also find them here on a special website on ABC RN.

But what explains our affection for trees?

Perhaps it’s the solidity of trees—moving yet not mobile, living but not threatening—which makes us feel we’re always safe with a tree.

Maybe it’s the creatures a tree gives home to, alongside us—the small animals, birds and insects. The tree allows us connection with the natural world on an equal footing. When we connect with a tree we are no longer the masters. Or maybe it’s the fantasies a tree allows us. We could be flying when up in a tree, a branch could be the back of a dragon to sit on, or a ship, or an invisibility cloak out of which to spy on the adult world of corners and sharp edges, while enfolded in the fractal geometry of a tree’s branching hold.

Robert Harrison, philosopher and Professor at Stanford University’s department of French and Italian studies, says a group of trees—a forest—provides a powerful sense of mystery, and that mystery is itself mysterious. This universal sensation was recognised by the French anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss in his book Tristes Tropique: ‘a few dozen yards of forest are enough to abolish the external world, one universe gives way to another, which is less flattering to the eye, but where hearing and smell, faculties closer to the soul than sight, come into their own’.

In the forest sound becomes the dominant sense. You simply cannot see that far when in the heart of a forest. Sounds bounce strangely around and lose their identifying visibility. The forest becomes a place of imaginings. It’s exhilarating and terrifying, numinous, liminal.

Forests were there at our very beginnings—they’re a place of origin, Professor Harrison says. As does Trees I’ve Loved project contributor Sue Kidd, who comments: ‘I live on the edge of a black forest. The black forest was there before it became a gold mine, firstly alluvial gold and then deep mining underground... each day I walk around a valley that is part suburb, part slag heaps, part small blocks, the trees stand tall and enduring. I imagine the box ironbark forest of old. I imagine knowing how to sing to country to bring it back, my toes dance in the dirt. Someone has put bird boxes in some of the old trees. You might never know that my street was once the natural entrance to a valley of black trees, but once you have traced it's boundaries it becomes imprinted and I seldom walk anywhere else. It speaks to me and encourages me to care for country. To learn about the land's history before gold mining.’

John Bennett contributed a similar story about the ancient significance of trees, sent to us from his house on the edge of the Tallowwoods of the mid-north coast of NSW:

‘The first modern tree Archaeopteris conquered the world. Its pelt covered much of Pangaea and changed the surface of the planet. Since then trees have evolved 100,000 species, all possessing different cultural, economic and ecological values. And now 10 per cent are endangered.

Trees are endangered, but trees also endanger us. Professor Lesley Head, an expert in Earth and Environmental Science from The University of Wollongong, has researched people’s attitudes to their back gardens. She says that even tree lovers often prefer not to have trees too close to their homes.

‘Trees were one of the things about which there was quite significant conflict and quite significant variation in views—so we had people who loved and adored trees in their back garden and people who felt quite uneasy about them,’ Professor Head says.

‘They were also a source of conflict between neighbours in many situations... [T]rees are big, trees are often planted close to boundaries so they hang over the fence. They can lift up fences, they can lift up paths, they can drop branches, they can shade people's sun. So they are quite active in those spaces.’

Poet, performer and regular RN contributor Cameron Semmens writes an evocative exploration of his ambiguity towards the pine trees which watch over his home:

with love and fear’s twisted leashes

I behold

our three

pine trees.

Here the trees are celebrated family companions, yet also hold within them, always, the potential for ignition—Australian trees are firesticks. Our fear therefore has a deeply rational basis, but it encompasses a less rational anxiety too. As Stanford’s Professor Harrison says: ‘It goes back to a distinction that Freud and Kierkegaard made between fear and anxiety. Fear has a direct object. You know what you're afraid of—you're afraid of the guy who is following you in the street, or the animal who is in front of you. Anxiety has an indeterminate object—you don't know exactly what it is that is making you anxious.’

This tree—or forest-based—anxiety was documented as far back as the time of Gilgamesh, says Professor Harrison. Gilgamesh was a Sumerian King and founder of the city of Uruk, who lived 4500 years ago. He looked over the walls of his city, and he saw the forest far away, and its apparent permanence filled him with dread. So Gilgamesh asked the Sun God’s permission to cut the forest down.

‘The forest has an immortality that he doesn't have,’ Professor Harrison says. ‘And in a certain sense, he is taking revenge on the natural world for his own mortality. And so much of our human behaviour in relation to nature, and especially to forests, seems to have an irrational rage; an un-mastered, adolescent rage about it, that is taking vengeance on nature for the fact that it has a permanence that we are denied.’

In producing the Trees Project project I’ve found there is so much that our relationship with trees expresses about the larger human condition—fear, love, aggression, compassion and desire. It is an ancient and primal engagement. Contributor Stephanie Suszko’s clever poem of rhyming couplets expresses what this might all come to, in the last:

...but the tree in all forms has lasted eons of years

and will resurge from their dieback long after human disappears

perhaps time can erase a planet's treatment so cruel

and they'll sink back in the earth and make more fossil fuel

then the circle of life may resume once again

but evolution might be wiser than to give rise to men.

For more RN listener contributed trees stories, and links to the week’s documentaries, go to the Trees I’ve Loved project webpage. Find out more at 360documentaries, or leave your thoughts on trees you've loved in our comments section below.

crank :

Dennis Bauer :

16 Nov 2013 11:01:10am

Like to know if any one else has this feeling.I think Trees have an intelligence that we can't even begin to understandTo me they are a life as are all flora and fauna.No i have not seen amy fairyies in the garden lol.

Rachel :

Eleni :

16 Nov 2013 12:39:13pm

Lets not forget "no tree no oxygen". No oxygen, no life. I always loved trees and I feel at peace when I am sitting under a beautiful tree. If everyone on earth planted just one tree how beautiful this world would be.

HERENOW :

spirit of movement :

17 Nov 2013 10:17:46pm

Trees sustain our being,the natural world has infinite knowledge we need to walk lightly upon our earth so she may regain balance ...TREES shelter, give shade,show strength,flow and move with ease are majestic are soft they speak through shape form design pattern sound smell they support life.

Stephen S :

18 Nov 2013 3:11:21pm

As befits our cultural cringe and our resource extraction economy, Australians are generally taught to admire the 'falling leaves' of European trees, and distrust the 'falling branches' of Australian trees.

Many Australians would struggle to identify a dozen native trees, though there are thousands of species to admire and wonder at.

Sarah :

18 Nov 2013 4:58:02pm

I have only had fond encounters with trees... trees with souls, whispering, listening, supporting. I especially admire the dead trees spotted on country drives, still standing with strength against whatever wind, rain and sun can throw at them.

Michele McKenzie :

18 Nov 2013 9:19:43pm

In march/April 2004 Chris Harris clr for city of Sydney and I climbed a perimeter fence and sat in a fig tree, one of many, that the domain trust wanted to cut down. These trees had been in the same spot for many years and we saw photos of the trees at the Red Cross tea for returning world war 1 soldiers. During the next few weeks we were joined by scores of people who wanted to protect thse trees, some joined us and slept overnight in the park. Alan jones sent a breakfast from David jones and Kerry packer sent a truck full of mulch. Our petition was signed by thousands of sydneysiders including the great and the good and MP's and journos. Once you have sat in a tree for even just a few hours you start to develop a personal relationship and affection for the tree. In the end clover Moore and bob debus got together to agree that the trees should be cut down and they were. Afterwards it was discovered that the trunks of the figs held no disease just as our independent arborist had predicted. What a shame.

Lesley Dalziel :

22 Nov 2013 8:45:15am

Its hard to single out one tree in a lifetime of tree loving, but for now, I would like to mention the trees of Melbourne - in particular the Lemon Scented Gums at the top of Swanston Street, and at the city end of the Tullamarine freeway. I have known lots of noble trees in my life, and loved their size, grace, strength, endurance. Not just a block of wood, they are carbon stored by some miracle of creation, giving us the air we breathe, shade, homes for possums and rosellas, somewhere to climb, build a cubby, look out for our ship to come in. I have known so many great trees, in my life's journey, from the tough little Snappy Gums of Mt Isa to the giants of East Gippsland and WA, River Red Gums of stupendous age, the Bunya Pine and the California Redwood, I have loved them all. So why do I think of the trees of Melbourne at this time? As Melbourne grows increasingly, with a higgledy piggledy mess of high-rises, the trees are hanging on. Those three Lemon Scented Gums have been greeting me when I have had to go to Melbourne for 36 years, and I feel I know them well. We pass them and check them out every time, and I have to say they are looking good. They change colour, luminous in the sunlight, and do their best to counter-balance the great urban ugliness. They have survived some terrible dry times. There is clear evidence of tender loving care from parks and gardens staff, mulch spread, room to spread the branches. Thanks to you all for that and long may you continue to nurture these friends of all people.

Ginty D'Aldiss :

22 Nov 2013 5:49:39pm

My boyhood memories of trees are of their malevolence. Some might say I deserved it, but as a lad I didn't see things that way at all. Take the lime tree that grew against the high stone wall around our house. It got me into trouble with the police, no less; mind you, that was after I had peed on the gardener's head and was made to stay at home while the rest of the family went off for a day at the beach. While playing at being Robin Hood, I shot an arrow into the lime tree which stubbornly refused to give it back. So in frustration, I threw rocks into the foliage to try and dislodge the arrow. One of my missiles, however, flew over the wall and smashed the windscreen of a passing vehicle, cutting the driver on his forehead.When my parents returned from the beach , it was to find that the police were about to haul their son and heir off to prison. Then there was the bread-fruit tree which was leaking it milky, sticky substance all over my hair as I climbed about its branches. That evening, my mother had to take the scissors to my head to rid me of the many lumps of gooey sap sticking to my hair.Finally there was the large tree that harboured many birds' nests filled with eggs ready for the collecting. Too high and too cocky was I, though, for I lost my grip and fell to earth, breaking both arms-in seven places. No, my experiences with trees cannot be said to have provided me with pleasant boyhood memories.

Sally Shaw :

23 Nov 2013 5:19:17pm

Of Vaue?

a giant with an elevated long life. Complex and intricate like the silent surgeon at work. Genetically unique, a genius ecosystem and provider of remarkable resources - copious canopy to protect, and producer of food for friend and foe. Germinate buds after a bushfire. Geotropic and rigorous roots to lower water tables and reduce salination. No problem with oversized trunk, an adventure for the young. For the artist, a delight with its scintillatingly carved and aesthetically enhanced fine tattoo patterns.

BUT some say, itsa pain in the neck, ‘cos untidy (leaves and bark), a fire risk.Must be got rid of, they whinge.Ring the tree lopper, “NO WORRIES, we’ll be there tomorrow.”

The gallant death squad arrives with their surgical apparatus: ropes, chain- saw, protective helmets, metallic blades.No time to waste, Let’s get on with it.“Which one is it?”“That nuisance one over there”.

The air penetrates with screeching screams as the razor teeth penetrate trunk.Again and again the blades infiltrate, Then within minutes, A violent fall.The earth trembles. The cries of nature penetrate the air.

Graeme Wathen :

24 Nov 2013 12:05:04am

I remember a special tree of my childhood.

I grew up in then outer suburbia Melbourne. My father was a builder and built the family home before my parents married in 1934. He was only a carpenter at the time, and told us kids he used to take building materials to the house by balancing them on his push bike and walking alongside. My mother worked at a doctor's surgery before she married. On a visit to Melbourne's Botanic Gardens she picked up an acorn and planted it in the front garden of her new home.

The acorn grew into an oak tree, which by the time I was old enough to climb trees, it was the biggest tree in our front garden. Its branches spread out over the footpath outside our front fence. The foliage was dense enough to hide a small boy from pedestrians walking past.

In the 1950's Melbourne seemed to have endless summer heat waves. As a diversion to the boredom of the long school holidays I remember making water bombs by folding a foolscap sheet of paper in a special way and carefully filling them with water from the front tap right next to the oak tree. I would climb the oak tree out over the footpath and wait for a passer by to walk underneath. Timing was difficult and I never managed to drop a water bomb directly on anyone. But it sure was fun.

The oak has long gone, and so too the house that Dad built. Now three townhouses fill the suburban quarter acre and there is no room for an oak tree.

Nigel Butterley :

25 Nov 2013 9:51:04am

When I was a small boy the bed I slept in provided an Eastern view through a large window. I could see 3 very big trees, each providing its silhouette at sunrise. I was a rather religious little boy and I named them the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They provided a powerful symbol of the Mystery of God.